CONVERSATIONS WITH JOE STRACZYNSKI, Part One

 Apologies on the delay, to anyone who cared...

I showed up at New York Comic Con at about 11:15 am on Friday, having not even glanced at the panel schedule. I walked a quick loop of the convention, marveling at the collection of original Superman costumes on display at the far wing of the Javits Center, passing by Rob Liefeld’s table (which strategically blocked any view of his feet), and generally marveling at the scope and scale of it all. “Too much” would be the running theme of the weekend.

Finally looking at the brochure just before noon, my eyes immediately gravitated to “Writing Workshop with Joe Stracynski.” I looked at the time – it was starting in 20 minutes. I quickly hustled into the bowels of the Javits and found the line, right at the point where I was able to get one of the last seats.

Straczynski opened by saying that conventions are a great place to get information from experts, which is why, after an opening statement, he was going straight to the question and answer portion of it.

“No questions are out of bounds…. If this panel sucks, it’s your fault,” he cautioned.  

Stupid Shit Sarah Lawrence Kids Say, Part 4: Allen Ginsberg vs. the One Percent

BACK AFTER A TWO YEAR HAITUS...

They stride into the coffee shop and he’s practically yelling, as if to negate any retort to the argument, “Your father’s a surgeon! He’s got money!” I thought it was a plot out of some James Cain story: the malleable, soft-spoken, innocent girl; the overbearing, one-sighted boyfriend. Does he want to murder the girls’ father and run off with her and the old man’s war chest? 

Hardly.

You’re probably wondering what he looks like, but the best way to sum him up is thusly: he asks for the student discount - 10% off his $2 cup of coffee, then inexplicably pays a 25 cent surcharge because he’s using his debit card. I can hear the excuse now…. “Well, I don’t have any REAL money….” Other than that: well-coiffed hair, with an attempt to look slovenly. Cuffs on his skinny jeans, scruffy beard, turtle shell glasses - his best Allen Ginsberg impression.

CONVERSATIONS WITH JOE STRACZYNSKI, Part Two

(I post this one first because it was the tougher of the two to write.)

Damn my luck, Joe Straczynski was giving another talk on Saturday. This time,  still in the bowels of the Javits Center (though in a larger room). The most striking part of the conversation came when someone asked a question regarding Michael O’Hare, (for simplicity sake) the original Captain of Babylon 5, who, as legend had it, was written off the show because he was too difficult of an actor to work with (the classic story was in Claudia Christian's book, in which he came on to her by describing the size of his balls, or something to that effect).

Being in the back of the room, I didn’t hear the exact question, but it was in reference to a story that JMS told at a Phoenix Convention a few weeks prior. I hadn’t heard anything about what he’d said, and was floored by the story that Straczynski subsequently told (I tried to faithfully quote him, but it was… difficult).

He started by saying “You all know what delusional behavior is, right? Seeing imaginary things… thinking the government is out to get you… well I guess that’s just a reality these days...”

This prompted a laugh from the audience. As for myself, knowing the stories about O’Hare, I thought JMS was joking.

But Straczynski paused, slowly choosing his words. The wise-cracking writer with the no-nonsense attitude was getting serious.  

“Michael was having those problems. He was barreling toward a nervous breakdown.”

He said that everyone was in agreement to suspend the show so that Michael could get the treatment he needed, but that he simply wouldn’t let them. As bad off as he was, Straczynski said, he didn’t want all those people to lose their jobs because of his problems.

Ultimately, and with difficulties that none of us can imagine, O’Hare finished the season and JMS wrote his character off the show. O’Hare then got the got treatment he so desperately needed. JMS mentioned how difficult of a process it was, finding first the right drugs and then the right dosage. O’Hare did the Convention circuit that year, and when people saw how sickly he was becoming, it prompted rumors of drug abuse.

“Well yeah, it was because of drugs, but not the way you think,” Straczynski said, referring to O’Hare’s treatment.

As all of this was going on, Straczynski reassured O’Hare that his health issues would never come to light.

“I told him that his secret was safe with me. That I would take it to my grave. And he just looked at me and said, “No. Don’t take it to your grave; take it to mine.” 

O’Hare just knew that Joe was going to outlive him, and the reason he said that was because after he was gone, O’Hare wanted “the fans to know that they helped sustain me.” That was why Straczynski recounted the story at the Phoenix Con - so fans would know how much they meant to a sick man.

Michael seemed to pull through, well enough to do a two part episode to close out the character’s story, though that was essentially the end of his career. He had a few good years, got married, had a child.

And then, Joe said, he stopped his meds. And when that happens, often times it’s simply too difficult to get back on them.

 Joe Straczynski, the frank and forward man, stopped and thought.

“And then, just about a year ago, we lost him.”

He stopped again, fighting back the memories.

“He was my friend. And it was unfair. And that’s all I want to say about that.”

"Man of Steel" Flexes a Little Too Hard...

OBVIOUSLY, SPOILERS....

I thought long and hard about it, whether or not I agreed with the ending of Man of Steel. I initially gave the filmmakers credit for trying to modernize Superman, to bring him into the more morally clouded 21^st century. But the more and more I thought about it, the less and less I liked what I had seen. I would not have had such a problem with the ending if it had not been for the fact that the whole movie was leading up to something completely different.

Most specifically, there is the Jesus parallels, which have always pervaded the Superman mythos. In this film, though, the viewer was beaten over the head with the idea. Oh, Superman just happens to be 33 years old, the same age as Jesus in the Bible? Oh, the big crossroads moment of Superman choosing his path just happens to come in a church, apropos of nothing previously in the film?  Oh, Clark debates his choices in a close up, with a stained glass window of Jesus taking up the entire scene behind him? Oh, the ongoing theme is that he is meant to be the Savior, whether it is of the Kryptonians or the humans? I get it; he’s Jesus. Two and a half hours of that being drilled into the viewer’s head, only to land on: the only way Jesus can save humanity is to kill the bad guys.

See the problem?

Shiv vs. Shank

What is the difference between a "shiv" and a "shank?" Also, can you be "shanked with a shiv" or "shivved with a shank?" Good questions indeed...

Stupid Shit Sarah Lawrence Kids Say, Part 3...

Shakespeare Edition 

This one is only one line long, but for the sake of explanation, I frame it with Lewis Black's bit about the line, "If weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college." Or, as he calls it, "the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life, until Dan Quayle was elected Vice President."

If you haven't heard it, you can find it here...

http://comedians.jokes.com/lewis-black/videos/lewis-black---college-horse

 I felt exactly the same way Lewis Black felt, and if I tried to explain it, well, blood probably would shoot out my nose...

So I walk into the coffee shop after really weird day. I just want to sip something warm and meditate. I sit at the only open table in the place, which happens to be a few feet from where three Sarah Lawrence girls sit, working on homework. They talk about various things, some boy that they think is cool, and they get on the topic of Shakespeare. Apparently one of them has issues with William Shakespeare. She says, and I quote

"I can understand why some people don't like Shakespeare. I mean, he's so, mainstream..."

 I'm going to repeat that, because it bears repeating...

"I can understand why some people don't like Shakespeare. I mean, he's so mainstream..."

Don't. Don't think about that sentence for more than three minutes, or blood will shoot out your nose. The American medical profession does not know why we get an aneurysm. An aneurysm is when a blood vessel bursts in your head for no apparent reason. There's a reason...

For my part, I had to get up and leave the coffee shop immediately. But those words are now in by brain forever.

Thank you, Sarah Lawrence, for validating stereotypes.

Paul Kemp vs. Raoul Duke: A Review of The Rum Diary

Last week I went and saw The Rum Diary, on opening night, of course. I buffered my low expectations with several sangrias at happy hour, a bottle of white wine on the Metro into the city, and a bagful of 24-ounce beer cans procured from a newly discovered Rite-Aid in Grand Central Terminal. I didn’t know what to expect, standing there in the check-out line in front of a drunken commuter who was shouting that they were out of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I figured it important to see the film in the city, as the core of the novel surrounds a writer who despises the city and in turn flees to a place he assumes would be a tropical paradise. I could see what Thompson was getting at, because in the few unsteady blocks between the station and the theater I saw a man almost run down by a bus, a rickshaw equipped with JBL speakers glide past 42^nd street, and that horrible abortion of color that is Times Square. I got caught up conversing with a street preacher and almost missed the previews, but I just had to ask her if she thought New York was Sodom.

She thought it over for a second, then said, “Well, it’s a modern-day Sodom, yes,” as if that made the news any easier to take. I laughed and after a brief conversation about whether or not I had been drinking, I told her I had to go.

The theater had peacocks painted on its ceiling, which I hoped was a good sign, but as the lights faded out I became unsettled by distinct distaste in my mouth left by the trailer for the new Twilight film. That and I could not seem to get over the couple sitting next to me. They seemed more interested with opening soy sauce packets to put on the sushi they had smuggled into the theater than they were with the film itself.

I went in to that first viewing with low expectations, and what I came out with was a weird vibe that it was better than I expected. Yet underneath that veneer, I was left with an uneasy feeling.